Inspired Green

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Tedious - Process began in October. Stressful.

We were initially contacted door to door. They installed faucet aerators and an energy shower head and gave us some CFL bulbs and scheduled us for a free inspection. The second guy came and spent a lot of time in our attic and told us we had a moisture problem in our attic and mold and that we really needed soffit vents on our house. He persuaded us to do their $400 blower door test and energy audit. The third guy came to do the blower door test and energy audit - he couldn't answer any questions about the people before him or about what would come after him. Then we had to schedule a two hour meeting to go over the report with both myself and my husband present. After getting this all scheduled we met with the 4th guy who went page by page with what was wrong with our house etc. And then outlined jobs as "criitcal" and "priority" and tried to talk us into taking action on his estimates right away. His estimates indicated that to put in soffit vents and bathroom vent and a few other things (not even adding insulation) would come to ~$2400, and the additional suggestions regarding insulation would bring it to a total of $6000+. He tried to get us to commit right then at the same meeting showing us the additional discount we would save that we wouldn't have if we called him back the next day. This made me uncomfortable, since they had already preyed on our fear by telling us we had "mold" (the 2nd guy) and now the "mold expert" (the 4th guy) was telling us that we did not have mold but the conditions for mold and that we needed to do things right away. I'ld rather loose that $100 discount and get a second opinion. So I did and am having the ventilation AND insulation taken care of by another company (applegate) for $1800. I'm a lot more at peace with applegate the first guy that set foot in my house could answer all my questions and didn't try to scare me into anything - he was very realistic. I did NOT like that there were so many layers to inspired green and they couldn't answer my questions sufficiently about the other layers - I also didn't like that they tried to push us into deciding right away and that their prices were 1.5 to 2 times those of my second estimate.

The salesman (person during the assessment) arrived on time and first spent time on a questionnaire about the first contact made a few days earlier. Since my mother could not walk through the house I went with the person. In the basement he pointed to fiberglass insulation stuffed against the foundation and said it doesn't do any good because air could go through it. (I did not say anything - just laughed to myself- because the front porch (with a solid concrete foundation) was in front of that wall - no chance of significant air flow through that wall any way. Pointed out some water leakage (which I know about and is because of poorly located downspouts). Second floor no comments. In the attic pointed out we had vents in the roof but non in the soffits could cause heat to be drawn up from first floor - this is the only item I felt could have an effect on keeping the home warm in the winter. KIt was obvious the person had little knowledge of construction of older homes - he was clueless about the pockets in double hung windows for the sash weights - said we should just fill them with foam - that the weights did not need much room. Kept questioning how I new there was energy loss in some area - ie the windows that don't have storms etc. I finally left before I blew up and left my mother to end the assessment - she decided to to the audit - I think out of curiosity more than anything else. We will see what they come up with

They were fabulous. They came out around January 18th or 19th and then somebody came out maybe a couple of weeks later to see how everything had been done. They had done something in the attic so that the light on our stove wouldn't turn on. The guy went up to into the attic and fixed it. They did a fabulous job. They really were very respectful of us in our home. They cleaned up well. I would say anybody should use them. We got a rebate from Consumers Energy for about $1200.00. They were really, really good. They were supposed to come at a certain time and they called us and said they would be here later at a particular time. They didn't call us back again, but they showed up two hours after that time. That wasn't good. They didn't communicate well with us.

We gave this company a "B" overall because they made the work right in the end. That has to be emphasized. They also gave us a substantial discount off the work that was done, as their way of showing their commitment to getting everything done correctly. They even put a statement in writing that they had screwed up, which I find rare in a company, and again showed their commitment to making everything right. And in the end, all services were finally performed correctly and we are satisfied with the work that was done. But believe me, it took a lot of effort to get to that point. And I'd like to emphasize the value of taking comprehensive notes during every meeting and phone call with a company with whom you are dealing, because this is what saved us in the end. In chronological order our experience went like this: - After we had already had the comprehensive energy assessment done (costing $425), the salesman who came out to sell us on what work needed to be done and have us sign the contract for work, told us that cost could NOT be deducted from the cost of work done. Only after we produced notes from the previous person's sales pitch did we get that money taken off the cost of the contract (and even then we had to remind him as he wrote up the cost). He also wanted to sell us a hot water heater that would not have qualified for the CE rebate. After our own research we came up with a model of Hot water heater that we liked and would qualify for the rebate. We made sure he specified that hot water heater in the contract. This salesperson also tried to convince us to do some work on the insulation of the roof that we were skeptical of (this included completely stopping the air flow in the insulated space). He referred us to a website to see why this was a good idea. We went to that very website and found several articles stating this was a terrible idea and giving the reasons why it was wrong. We declined to have that work done. The salesperson also said he would be our contact person throughout the rest of the process. Right up until we signed the contract he was extremely accessable, returning our phone calls (we contacted him three times) if we couldn't actually reach him the first time. We paid 1/2 the cost of the work up front. And yet another person called two weeks later with installation dates and details, and gave us his phone number. - The day the water heater was to be installed they delivered the wrong model - which also happened to be the model the salesperson originally wanted to sell us. Had we not checked the model number ourselves, the wrong water heater would have been installed. We contacted the person who had scheduled the appointment and he agreed it was wrong and would take 2 weeks to get the correct model ordered and in. We wondered why the correct model hadn't been ordered in the first place and we now had to wait two more weeks. We also called the salesperson, who had said when we signed that contract that he would be with us throughout the process. Unlike before we signed the contract the salesperson neither answered his phone or returned our messages. - The person who was to perform most of the rest of the work (the rim joist insulation, duct wrap, and air leak sealing), came out 3 days ahead of time to go over the work to be done in the house, to make sure he understood the work to be done. We reviewed everything with him. Yet, when he arrived the day to do the work, he had only 1/2 the amount of duct wrap called for. He should have known this was not enough. He wrapped duct work he had material for, but even what he did was substandard. He only wrapped the main heating duct around 3 sides (even though all 4 sides are accessable), and everything he did wrap fell off by the next day. Literally onto the floor. He did the rim joist insulation well, and did a lot of sealing work around the house (although at times he was messy with the sealer, getting it on the basement floor in a couple places and leaving the cut-off tops of the tubes on the floor). But we had to tell him to replace the fiberglass insulation that was already in part of the rim joist area and put it in where it wasn't already there (something we had been told he would do by the work scheduler). He sealed leaks around the house in places he said he knew where obviously leaking, but did not preform the blower door assisted sealing we had paid $400 for as part of the work. - the person (a subcontractor with another company) who was to install the "mechanical ventilation" we had been promised arrived as scheduled, but said he didn't have the tools to do the work, because no one told him he would have to go through brick for the vent. We thought an installer would come prepared for all common home exterior types. He also said they hadn't scheduled him enough time to go through brick even if he had the right tools. He rescheduled. After a couple visits from this guy over the next week, we discovered that they weren't installing the promised motorized "mechanical ventilation" but a passive "makeup air" system. At this point we had duct insulation that had only been half done and then what had been done had fallen off, no new hot water heater, our leak sealing had not been done with the $400 blower door assist we had contracted for, AND WORSE YET, COULD NOT GET A HOLD OF ANYONE AT INSPIRED GREEN. Even the subcontractor who was to install the Mechanical Ventilation could not get a hold of them. We called. We emailed. We emailed the scheduling guy's boss. No response. Nothing. It was as if they had dropped off the face of the earth. Finally the mechanical ventilation subcontractor told us of someone else in the company we could contact - someone he had just worked with on a job and whom he said was a good guy. We called him, and at that point the ball started rolling to get things done. We finally received a call back from the salesperson with whom we had signed the contract. He was very sorry and offered no stupid excuses as to why we disappeared once we had signed the contract and given them half the money for the job. It was refreshing. We started getting calls from the new supervisor, and the person who had scheduled all the work appointments, and eventually had extensive dealings with a company executive. We were told they were a fast growing company and some of their people needed better training. They said they were going to learn from all the problems we had experienced, make sure they never happen again, and make it right for us. They assigned a supervisor to come out to make sure that all the work was done properly. They agreed that the salesperson had not understood what "mechanical ventilation" really is and had actually sold us "makeup air." They agreed to put in real Mechanical Ventilation and eat the difference in cost (which turned out to be several thousand dollars). In the end we decided that we would be satified with the Makeup air they had already installed, but were under no pressure from them to do so. We found it refreshing that they were going to install a unit that would cost them more than what they were contracting to send on the entire job. They also provided an inspection of our furnace at no charge that would qualify for that particular CE rebate. However, and here's the kicker - we THEN discovered after work was completed and the final blower door assisted sealing was done (where numbers are taken, like in the original blower door leak test), that the ORIGINAL NUMBERS, FROM THE TEST IN DECEMBER, FROM WHICH ALL OUR DECISIONS FOR WHAT WORK TO HAVE DONE WHERE MADE, WERE INCORRECT!!! THE ORIGINAL TESTER HAD TYPO-ED THE NUMBERS WHEN ENTERING HIS RESULTS INTO THE COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR ANALYSIS. These numbers were used to make our decision to get the new hot water heater ($1200), get the mechanical ventilation (which ended up being makeup air) for $500, and so on. After making everything right that we had contracted for, at this point the executives from Inspired Green asked what they could do to make this a good experience for us, to prove that they were sincere in their desire to show us they are a reputable company, that they had learned from this experience, and would be a better company in the future for what they learned in our case. We asked for 25% off the total cost. They agreed and put it in writing. Although this was not the happiest experience I have had with a company, I can also say it was refreshing to see them finally come around, accept full responsibility, and be completely contrite about the mistakes that had been made. This is rare. Everybody makes mistakes - we are all just human, after all - and in this case a LOT of mistakes were made. But Inspired Green obviously cares about their reputation and were willing to do what it took to fulfill our expectations of service. One good lesson from this - take good notes from every contact you have with a company, in person or by phone. It helped us a lot here.

They approached us on a door to door kind of thing. They recommended some changes which we let them do and we have seen about a 30 percent reduction in our electric bill. They were always prompt, courteous and very careful when going inside and outside not to get dirt on the carpet. They cleaned up after themselves and you could not even tell they had been there. We will recoup our investment in about three years due to rebates from our power company as well as savings on our monthly bill. We were so pleased and I will use them again in the future.